WEBVTT - How Embalming Works 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:14.160 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.400 and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant and Jerry's here too, 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:21.239 And this is Stuff you should Know part of the 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:29.160 Famed and Legendary Deaths suite, which just rambles on. Yeah, 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:31.120 we talked a little bit about this in a couple 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:35.199 of them, but I'm surprised of two things. That we 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:38.839 haven't covered this in full yet too, and that you 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:42.880 managed to find an article on our old our old 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.920 Pals website and housetop works dot com we hadn't used 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:51.440 or written dude. I I scour the site frequently and 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:55.880 everyone too. Yeah, sometimes you can find like how did 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:58.280 this slip by? That's why it just keeps you going, 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:00.880 you know what I'm saying. Yeah, it's hard to believe. 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:02.120 We still get a lot of a lot of our 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.880 shorties ideas from there, which is great, But it has 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:07.840 been a while I think since we were able to 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:11.240 find something. It's just hiding in there, hiding in the 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:15.880 blood vessels of the body. Very nice and speaking of bodies, Chuck, 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:18.480 I don't remember where we talked about this before, but 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.240 I do remember that we talked about the death of 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:26.319 Abraham Lincoln and how he was one of the first 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.600 um presidents. Two it must have been lying in state. 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:32.800 I'll bet it was the short stuff on lying in state, 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:34.920 because I think he was one of the first presidents 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:38.520 to to lie in state in different places. And the 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:41.480 reason he was able to do that is because he 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:46.840 was involved he was subject to some modern chemical embalming 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:50.600 techniques that had recently been introduced by a guy named Dr. 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:56.040 Thomas Holmes, and it allowed Abraham Lincoln to take a 0:01:56.160 --> 0:02:00.000 very leisurely nineteen days to make it from Washington, D's 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:04.559 see to his hometown of Springfield, Illinois for burial, which 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:08.240 is a long time for a corpse in the nineteenth 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.760 century to be above the ground. And yet he was 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:16.359 still fairly presentable by the time he got to Springfield 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.639 when he was buried, and um, it was all thanks 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.600 to that embalming process. Yeah. And this was and we'll 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:26.760 get to the we'll get to Holmes Moore in a minute, 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:30.320 But this was during the Civil War, So great timing 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:34.840 for Lincoln. Also terrible timing for Lincoln just in general, 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.560 but as far as going on display, great timing previous 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:40.520 to this, he would have been on literally on ice. 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:43.160 When you hear like, you know, the bodies on ice. 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:44.560 That's how they used to do it. It's the only 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:46.240 way they could do it. Yeah, I have to say, 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:49.040 you mean. I went to this thing called the Merchants 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:51.640 House Museum in New York. It's the oldest house in 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.160 New York and it was owned by a sea merchant 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:57.160 named sea Bury Treadwell, if I'm not mistaken, one of 0:02:57.200 --> 0:02:59.840 the great names of all time. And we just happened 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:02.760 to go at a time when they were recreating what 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.160 the house would have been like for the funerals Seaburry Treadwell, 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:08.440 and they had like a cast get set up and 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:11.280 everything in the living room they had lilies everywhere just 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:13.760 stunk of lilies, which is one of the things they 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.160 used to mask the smell of decay. And then they 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.200 also had a little soundtrack playing of water dripping because 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:22.440 he would have been on huge blocks of ice to 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:25.280 kind of keep him to keep his body cold. But 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:27.000 it's one of the cooler things I've ever seen in 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:29.840 my life. And you know, walking around the museum even 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:31.919 when they don't have something like that going on, it's 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.480 pretty cool. It's definitely worth the visit. What part of 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:39.880 town downtown somewhere in Manhattan. I don't remember exactly where. 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:43.839 I don't, but I'm pretty sure it's lower I don't 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.000 know if it's east side or west side. It's got 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:47.920 to be, I mean, that was early New York. Yeah, 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:51.160 but it's it's super cool. The Merchant House Museum, if 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.480 I'm not mistaken, fantastic. Uh. And while you're down there, 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:58.400 check out the Tenement Museum, Yes, which we have not 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.320 I've not been to. You've been there, I guess, Yeah, Okay, 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.360 good stuff. Okay, Yeah, it's very cool. I mean if 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:07.200 you like old New York and seeing how things used 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.560 to be, right and then going downstairs and having some tapas. 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:15.720 Oh man, you're having a tapas, tapas or sushi. Uh. 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:19.680 But this is h Embalming, however, is not something that 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:21.680 was invented during the Civil War that was just sort 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:26.200 of using more modern chemicals. Uh, it was. This is 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.200 something that people have been doing since ancient times. The 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:33.000 word itself, embalm just means to put on a bomb. 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:37.200 And that comes from the fact that, uh, in ancient times, 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.040 like we're talking thousands and thousands of years ago. They 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:45.359 would put spices and perfume things, kind of anything that 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.120 they could think of to keep that body from becoming bones. Yeah, 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:53.560 and apparently Thomas Holmes was inspired by some Egyptian mummies 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:56.520 that he had been studying and realized like they had 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:00.360 done a really great job of embalming techniques, so started 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:02.960 coming up with his own embalming concoctions. I believe his 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.840 was Arsenic that he was using UM, which came into 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.560 wide US in the eighteen sixties until the nineteen tens, 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:16.080 I think UM. But his his introduction of the chemical 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:20.400 embalming to the US, it just changed funerals in the 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:24.200 United States to this day. We still have things like 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:27.919 viewings where you basically say, you know, come see the 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:30.719 dead body with your own eyes before the funeral, the 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:34.160 night before the funeral wakes. Like all just things that 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:36.440 we wouldn't have done. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been able 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.240 to do UM, delaying funerals for you know, until the 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:44.440 weekend when everybody's available. UM. All of the modern trappings 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:47.320 of of an American or Canadian or it turns out 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:51.679 New Zealand funeral um are based on the fact that 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:55.080 Thomas Holmes introduced chemical embolming in the eighteen sixties, and 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:59.560 that allows us to do things like that. Now, that's right. Uh. 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:01.240 If you want to go back through time and look 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:03.920 at the beginnings, you could go all the way back 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.800 about five thousand years ago to Spain. Uh. There were 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:15.160 cadavers found there in uh Lavella. That's why I would 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:17.599 go with sure, all right, and this is in Spain, 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:21.080 and they were found to be covered in um hundreds 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.520 of pounds of ground up cinnabar, which is the most 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:28.360 delicious way to be involved, right, although I don't know, honey, 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:32.640 don't forget honey. Yeah, that's true. Oh it's not sinna bun. 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:36.080 I thought it was sinna bun cinnabar. Sorry about that. 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:38.200 We talked about cinda bar before. Sin A bun will 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:43.279 put you in the tomb from the inside out and 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:46.040 actually know that, I think about it. If you ate enough, Yeah, 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:47.599 probably so. I haven't had one of those in a 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:51.640 long time. Um, And this is like a suspected case basically. 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.280 If you want to know, like for sure that they 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.360 were purposely embalming people, you can go back to four 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:59.919 thousand b C. With the Egyptians that you were talking about. 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.560 People would be wrapped in cloth. They would sometimes be 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:06.840 buried with charcoal and sand. Uh, they would be buried 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.600 away from the Nile River or where anywhere where there 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:13.600 in our river could reach via flooding. And you know, 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:17.880 the idea here is that in the afterlife you were 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:20.520 going to be physically resurrected at some point an immortal, 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:24.160 so your body needed to be kind of recognizable so 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:26.520 the soul and the shadow and the heart and the 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:30.440 name of the individual could lure it back. Um, they 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.680 embalmed about seven and thirty million people, so it was 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.960 a very common practice, even though the methods that we're 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:39.240 going to talk about here in a sect would be 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:42.560 different depending on kind of what status you were. And 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:46.320 you know, just keep in mind, this wasn't like modern 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:48.960 day embalming that you would think like that kind of preservation. 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:51.760 It's the kind of preservation to where you don't just 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:56.040 rot into bones and eventually just dust. But I mean, 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.840 the body is like you've seen these embalmed into embodies 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.280 or you know, they look like sort of baseball gloves 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.160 at that point, but it's still recognizable as a human 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:09.080 body exactly, which in and of itself is a triumph 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:14.040 of embalming, because you know, without any embalming, human body, 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:18.000 depending on the climate, is going to skeletonize, which is 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.280 just a kay into nothing left but a skeleton in 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.440 anywhere from a few weeks to a few years. So 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:26.640 the idea that like you said, it's still a recognizable 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.840 human with with tissue still intact and sometimes hair and 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.200 things like that. Like that, that was a successful embalming 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:36.680 and then some oh yeah, big time. We even have 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:41.720 a description thanks to a historian from Greece name Herodotus 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:45.080 who described how they did it. Uh, and you know, 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:48.000 it makes sense considering what we know now. Like if 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:51.800 you're if you hunt an animal and if you're into 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:54.079 that kind of thing, the first thing that you do 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.800 when you're when you're field dressing that animal is you 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:00.559 take those organs out because that keeps the body very 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.480 hot and warm, and that is going to really just 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:06.880 speed up the bacteria and the decay. So the first 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:10.680 thing that they did was remove the vital organs to 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:14.760 to cool that body down, remove the brain, wash it 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:18.880 and palm wine and then uh, you have all these 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:20.840 different vases. You know, at the time they didn't have 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:23.719 these modern chemicals. They had herbs and stuff like that. 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:27.440 They had these canopic jars filled to the top with 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:31.040 all these various herbs that they used. Yep. Uh. Then 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:34.320 they would basically take the body and fill it with 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:37.720 some mirror or other resins, perfumes, that kind of stuff, 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:42.040 stash it in some potassium nitrate for I believe seventy 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:45.360 days to kind of desiccate it. And then after that 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.040 is when they would put it in those famous bandages, 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:51.720 wrap it up like what we understand as a mummy um, 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:55.439 and then uh put it in the coffin and inside 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:57.920 it two and we did a whole episode on Mummy. 0:09:58.040 --> 0:09:59.800 So if you're just like, I want to know more, 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.280 tell me some more about mummies. We're gonna take our 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:04.960 leave for mummies here. But you can pause this one, 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:08.160 go listen to the Mummy's episode. Maybe you have a sandwich, 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:10.000 and then come back and listen to the rest of 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:14.440 this episode and you will be chock full of embalming. Yeah, 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:16.560 and then maybe top it off with our cremation episode 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:21.320 just for a full day that since you had the sandwich. Um. 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:23.640 So this process was you know, kind of with all 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.959 the bells and whistles, was for people with a lot 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:31.120 of money. Maybe the royal family even of the time, 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:33.640 you know, the kind of the further you went down 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:37.560 the social ladder, the less complicated it got as far 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:40.720 as having access to some of this stuff. So you know, 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:42.840 one thing they might do if you were sort of 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:46.440 maybe middle class was injected with cedar oil, store it 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:49.680 in that potassium nitrate for the same amount of time, 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.280 and then withdrawal that oil. And I got the feeling 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:55.600 that that just kind of pulls out a lot of 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.920 the stuff with it, and then you've got skin and bones. 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:01.679 And then if you really we're sort of at the 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:05.800 top of the totem pole um, they would pull the 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:09.680 intestines and then just cover the body and that potassium 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:14.079 nitrate and probably not even for seven seventy days. Very nice. 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.400 It was a beautiful early s YSK reference to I know, 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:19.720 I can't wait to get emails if I got that wrong, 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:24.120 right right, Um, we'll be like, you need to go 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:27.199 further back in the catalog, friend, Yes, exactly. Do you 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:29.720 want to keep going and talking about the ancient world? 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:33.040 Or take a break? First? Oh, I got a sandwich, 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:34.960 so let's take that break. Okay, we're gonna we'll be 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:37.320 right back. Everybody and we're gonna talk about you guessed it, 0:11:37.559 --> 0:12:05.080 more ancient world in balming, all right, chuck. So the Egyptians, 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:07.440 the ancient Egyptians do get a lot of the glory 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.400 and credit for embalming techniques, and rightfully so, I mean, 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:13.760 they got really good at it. Apparently the peak of 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.840 their embalming prowess came from the New Kingdom from fift 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:22.640 seventy to ten seventy five b c. UM. But you know, 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.880 that's kind of where people people's minds go when they 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:28.800 think of embalming. What's interesting, though, is there were other 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:33.079 cultures that were totally detached from Egyptians at the time. 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:36.560 There the Egyptian influence and culture would not possibly have 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:41.360 spread to these areas that we're doing very similar things um. 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:46.520 In some cases even predating the Egyptian embalming process. UM. 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:50.400 There was a group called the Chinchorros who or in 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:55.120 I believe modern day Ecuador and Chile. I'm sorry, they 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.960 were in Chile and about seven thousand years ago they 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:03.640 were disassembling bodies, treating the body parts with embalming um 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.160 I guess, fluids, um resins, that kind of stuff, and 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.440 then reassembling them with wooden structures so that they could 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:14.079 still I guess, move around do the robot and stuff 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.319 like that, covering them with clay and painting them. This 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:20.600 is seven thousand years ago, so it's clear there's a 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:25.480 real impulse among humans to like kind of preserve bodies. 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:28.479 It's not a new thing. It's a really ancient impulse. 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:32.720 It is. You mentioned honey earlier. I think it was 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:37.240 the Assyrians that we're using honey. Persians were using wax. 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:42.520 I believe the indigenous people of the Canary Islands, the guanches. 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:45.920 Is the way Google told me to say it. Look 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:50.400 that one up, good job. Let's say what walks shaw? 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:55.240 Oh boy. Uh. They would remove the soft internal organs 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:59.080 and then it's kind of like food preservation techniques. In 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.640 some cases they fill it salt and vegetable powder and 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:06.280 the same goes true. Uh for the Hivado in Ecuador 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:10.000 and Peru, they were they took their their tribal chiefs 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:12.679 and would it said here, they would slow roast them 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:17.319 over a fire. I think they were kind of smoking them. Yeah, 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:19.960 for preservation. There's really no other way to put it. 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:24.280 And there was probably some part of the people around 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:28.280 there's brain who's like this sounds really good, you think, so, 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:34.160 there's just no way. Um. There's also instances of um 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:38.880 Buddhist monks being preserved, which is a little interesting because 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:42.960 Um Buddhism usually calls for cremation, although I don't believe 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:47.840 there's any prohibition on embalming UM. And they would pack 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.880 the body and salt for a few months. And there 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:56.000 was a pretty famous case of a uh Tibetan monk 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.880 um being discovered accidentally this way, when somebody for some 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:04.440 reason x ray a Buddhist statue sitting Buddha. They found 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:08.800 out that there was a mummified monk inside. Who didn't 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:12.960 that neat, that's pretty cool. Yeah, I mean imagine being 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:15.840 the guy to figure that out, and just how surprising 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:18.360 that would be, you know, and by guy of course, 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:22.800 that it was gender neutral. Guy. Sure, Uh, not all 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.680 cultures got into this, though, I think you mentioned Buddhists 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:29.640 generally don't UM. Back in the day, Sumerians and Babylonians 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.840 and Jewish people, uh did not often use embombing in 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:38.880 these days. If you're Muslim or Jewish, you know, and 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:41.120 if you're if you're strict about it, they prohibit that. 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:46.480 And I think Uh, it's pretty rare if you're Hindu 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:50.400 as well, because they usually cremate just pretty quickly. Yeah, 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.560 there's not like a prohibition on it. It's just yeah, 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:58.320 it doesn't come up, you know. Um So, from what 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:00.480 I can tell, Chuck's going back to it today for 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.680 a second. The countries that have far in a way 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.400 the highest rates of embalming are the US, Canada, and 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:11.040 like I said, New Zealand, and I saw Australia somewhere 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:12.960 and I double checked and it said no, it's not 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.440 very common in Australia. So maybe listeners in Australia can 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:18.280 let us know one way or the other. And then 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.720 apparently it's also not common in the UK, but it's 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:24.840 common enough that the funeral industry is very much interested 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.880 in keeping embalming processes as they are. Um So, I 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:32.200 guess some people get involved in the UK. But I 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:36.800 guess America is the world leader in embalming corpses. Now, 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:38.360 what do you mean as they are like they just 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.200 don't want to be bothered and regulated or something. Don't know, 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.280 I don't understand, I think I get. I can't tell 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.560 if they just are being resistant to change or if 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:51.200 they're genuinely isn't an alternative, And they're like, we actually 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.360 need these techniques to preserve people for people who want 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:56.960 to be involved. I can't quite tell, but we'll talk 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:01.280 about any controversy a little further down the road. All right. Uh, 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:04.080 there have been some, you know, aside from King tut, 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.159 there's been quite a few famous people throughout antiquity that 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:11.320 have been embalmed, including but not limited to Alexander the Great, 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:16.680 Charles the Great a KA Charlemagne a k A CEO 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:20.080 of the Holy Roman Empire, CEO of the h r E. 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:25.000 That's right, he was involved and placed in a sitting 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:29.320 position in his tomb, which was super cool. Yeah. Uh, 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:31.520 and we know that because a couple of hundred years 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:36.120 after he died, the then ruler of the Holy Roman 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:39.480 Empire Otto the Third cracked his tumb open and went 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:46.320 inside and he's sitting up super unsettling. Yeah, he's watching me. 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:51.160 So they're using herbs, and they're using salt, and they're 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.200 using smoke, and they're using things that they could find 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:55.680 at the time, kind of like I said, how you 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:59.120 would preserve um an animal if you were to kill 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:02.080 and want to eat that them all and because that's 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:06.240 all we are anyway, right, And it started to decline 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:10.600 in the Middle Ages. It was costly. Um, these herbs 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:15.119 were expensive unless you were super upper class or even royal, 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:17.920 then you couldn't afford it to begin with. H And 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:21.080 then religious opposition kind of starts to pop up in 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:23.960 the Middle Ages. And it was sort of during this 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:28.320 pause that they actually um took took a leap forward, 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:32.120 I guess you could say, and the Renaissance, when all 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:35.000 of a sudden people like, hey, science is awesome, art 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:38.000 is cool, the body is great, let's investigate it more. 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:42.080 And it was da Vinci himself that actually developed was 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:43.720 the as far as I can tell, one of the 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.000 first two or the first to develop an injection method, 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.520 which is sort of, um, not sort of, it's exactly 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:54.439 how we do it today, when instead of like putting 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:57.520 things inside the body cavity, you would actually inject something 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:01.359 into the bloodstream, right. And if you've ever been in 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:05.399 an embalming room, um, you know that they use exactly 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.000 the same invention Da Vinci came up with, with wooden 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:12.040 gears to power the pumps and a flying machine that 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:15.879 goes around the room that I can't quite put my 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:18.200 finger on what it does. I think it's mostly for show. 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:22.040 I think so too, so UM. The French and the 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:26.080 Italians really were the ones we talked about UM Thomas 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:31.080 uh homes Um in the United States, and you know, 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:33.480 we do that because he was an American and this 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:38.760 is America an American podcast. UM. But prior to him, 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:42.280 the French and the Italians in the nineteenth century, UM 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:46.359 really kind of got into figuring out how to preserve 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:50.040 um corpses. And the reason why it had nothing to 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:52.719 do with funerals. It had to do with UM the 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:57.120 advancement of medical science to where all those grave robbed 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:01.080 corpses that were used by med students needed to be 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:05.640 preserved somehow, and so that really kind of pushed chemical 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:09.840 embalming to advance by leaps and bounds. And we have 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:13.560 our French and Italian brothers and sisters to thank for that. 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.119 That's right. And we also have a great live episode 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:22.359 on grave robbing. Yeah, live in London. It was. That 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:24.680 was one of the most fun trips we've ever done. 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.200 That was a good tour. It was a great tour. 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:30.359 Remember that we performed in a church in London. It 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:31.879 was just one of them. I can't believe they let 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:33.840 us in that place. I know. I felt like really 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:36.120 like I I can't curse here, and I just went 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:38.919 out the window really quick after a couple of gene teas. 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:43.240 And here's a little hint, London crowds, it wouldn't kill 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:45.159 you to make a little more noise, and you know, 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.600 like ham it up a little bit, sure, because when 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:51.800 you're on stage you can't tell that people are enjoying it. No, 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:55.360 but that was really the big problem was managed more 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.560 than London. Yeah, that's true. But then when we talked everyone, 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:00.080 they're like, no, we loved it. We just don't to 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:06.959 we don't express ourselves like Americans, caring over yourself. All right, 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:09.920 So where are we are in Italy? We are in France. 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:13.600 Things are moving along. They are using chemicals now, like arsenic, 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:18.480 like you mentioned, copper sulfate, zinc chloride, potassium carbonate. They're 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:22.639 basically trying everything. Sure, the chloride of mercury. Is this 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:25.959 a deadly chemical? Yes, well then let's use it for 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:29.040 embalming and see what happen. Let's give it a shot. Uh. 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:31.000 And then in the US is finally when we come 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:34.320 back to Dr Thomas Holmes introduced on the battlefield of 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:38.560 World War two. Uh, because basically people, you know, families 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:41.000 wanted to go out and see their loved ones, and 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:42.880 they had to preserve them because it took a while 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:47.160 to get to these battlefields in these places, in these hospitals, uh, 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:50.240 like field hospitals. Yeah. And in fact, I guess the 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:54.000 the Union Army hired and trained embalming surgeons to go 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:57.399 out on the battlefields. They paid eighty dollars for an 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:00.479 inbalmed body of an officer and thirty dollars for an 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:04.199 imborm body of a soldier. And um, it was a 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:06.600 big deal for families to be able to come and 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:11.000 claim there there they're dead relative and bring them back home, 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:15.439 which is yeah. Again, it just changed funerals in the 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:20.160 United States. That process changed everything. Um, and it has 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:21.920 changed since then, which we'll get to. But one of 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:24.359 the things that they needed to change was some of 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:26.080 this stuff that they were using, Like you were talking 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:30.000 about these dangerous chemicals arsenic um, not the least of 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:33.680 which is very dangerous. When these you know, the body 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:36.600 eventually does decompose, and then that wooden box that they're 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:39.879 buried in decomposes and all of a sudden, you've got arsenic, 0:22:39.880 --> 0:22:43.680 which doesn't decompose, just leaching into the soil. So if 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:46.159 you lived near a cemetery, and if that cemetery was 0:22:46.240 --> 0:22:50.120 near groundwater, um, you had some trouble going on back 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:54.600 in the day. You did. Now it's all fine. It's 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:57.480 probably not still right now. I gotta live near a 0:22:57.520 --> 0:23:00.840 Civil War cemetery, but it's probably not great. No, um, 0:23:01.000 --> 0:23:05.119 I I did not see the threat of arsenic poisoning 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:09.800 from cemetery still today, um, anywhere. But I think it's 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:12.720 I mean, I don't know, it's possible. We put a 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:14.960 lot of stuff into the ground, we bury somebody, and 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:18.159 it's not not all good, as we'll see. I was 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:21.040 being totally facetious that it's all fine today though, because 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:24.360 we're still doing the same process. He was using different chemicals, 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:27.400 that's right, And I guess that's where we are, sort 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:32.880 of the more modern process. Uh. If you are, if 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:35.640 you work in the in the funerary industry, if you're 0:23:36.000 --> 0:23:37.639 I don't know even know the words that they call 0:23:37.720 --> 0:23:44.520